Between the Bars: McCoy
by ns.108
Summary: Updated: A not-canon-but-not-not-canon take on Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid's relationship through seasons 5-6. In the same universe as "Between the Bars: Logan," so implied Mike Logan/Claire also.
1. VII

**Title/Author:** "Between the Bars: McCoy" by n.s.

 **Rating** : T (minor language, some suggestive scenes)

 **Summary** : A not-canon-but-not- _not-_ canon take on Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid's relationship through seasons 5-6; in the same universe as "Between the Bars: Logan," so implied Mike Logan/Claire also.

 **Disclaimer** :I don't own any of these characters. This story is brought to you by 20-year-old repeats of Law & Order that happen to coincide with my daughter's nap time.

XXXXXXX

"I'm going to Attica."

Her voice had the same tension he felt in her muscles without even having to touch her.

"That's your choice," he said without opening his eyes.

"That's it?" she demanded weakly, her voice cracking.

"What do you want me to say, Claire?" he said, opening his eyes and turning his face towards her.

Her eyes were open and the street lights outside made the tears in them shimmer.

"I don't know. I thought you'd be happy. You told me to accept it," she continued, her eyes accusing him, as they had been for almost four months with no end in sight, especially as Scott's execution neared.

"I told you to accept that in your role as a prosecuter in the state of New York, which as of last year, is a death penalty state, you may prosecute someone who will be eventually executed," he explained, sternly at first, but then softening when he added, "I _didn't say_ you need to watch it happen."

She wiped at her eye with the edge of his sheet.

"I wouldn't even make it through the first round of voir dire if I was called for the jury, but somehow I'm supposed to prosecute without taking any issue," she said bitterly, rolling onto her back.

"Yes, because you're voir dired as Miss Kincaid, and you prosecute as New York Assistant District Attorney Kincaid."

"Convenient compartmentalization."

" _Necessary_ compartmentalization," it was his turn to turn away from her. "I don't know what else I can say to convince you."

"Maybe there is no convincing me."

Neither of them spoke, and neither of them slept. They both knew they weren't just talking about Mickey Scott.


	2. VI

**Title/Author:** "Between the Bars: McCoy" by n.s.

 **Rating** : T (minor language, some suggestive scenes)

 **Summary** : A not-canon-but-not- _not-_ canon take on Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid's relationship through seasons 5-6; in the same universe as "Between the Bars: Logan," so implied Mike Logan/Claire also.

 **Disclaimer** :I don't own any of these characters. This story is brought to you by 20-year-old repeats of Law & Order that happen to coincide with my daughter's nap time.

XXXXXXX

She answered on the fourth ring and he hoped she didn't hear his sigh of relief on the other end.

"Hi," she said, knowing.

"Hey. Meet me at Romano's at 11:30. I want to talk about Smith, in person," he said quickly, the words tumbling over each other in his hurry, before she could say no.

"I need some space, Jack," she said, sounding so close he swore if he turned around he would see her. He curled his fingers around the phone and closed his eyes, hoping again his voice didn't betray his desire—no, _need_ —to see her. It had been three days, and the longest in his memory since he didn't see her since they met, and he was feeling it, as a lover and as a friend and as a colleague.

 _You're in trouble, Jack,_ Sally's words whispered in his other ear.

"From the case, pizza, or me?" He didn't wait for an answer, tried to be brusque. "Just come. We'll talk there. Neutral ground."

"I'm off the case."

"Then bill me for the time."

He hoped she was smiling when she said, "See you there."


	3. V

**Title/Author:** "Between the Bars: McCoy" by n.s.

 **Rating** : T (minor language, some suggestive scenes)

 **Summary** : A not-canon-but-not- _not-_ canon take on Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid's relationship through seasons 5-6; in the same universe as "Between the Bars: Logan," so implied Mike Logan/Claire also.

 **Disclaimer** :I don't own any of these characters. This story is brought to you by 20-year-old repeats of Law & Order that happen to coincide with my daughter's nap time.

XXXXXXX

"Do you think I'm blind?" Adam asked suddenly.

Jack looked up from the case file he had been speaking about before the District Attorney interrupted him.

"Sir?"

" _Blind_ ," Adam repeated, "Or senile?"

"I don't know what—,"

"You and Miss Kincaid." He said, his gaze level and unwavering. "She's a great lawyer, Jack. An asset to this office."

"Agreed."

"I don't want another Diana Hawthorne—,"

"Adam, they couldn't be more diff—,"

"—and I don't want you going down Thayer's path."

Jack slapped the case file shut. "I'm not married," he said indignantly, adding, "or a sociopath."

The older man's face was steely. "Then what are your intentions exactly?"

"Why do I feel like I'm being interrogated by an overprotective father?"

"You're lucky it's me, I'm not a Harvard law professor." Adam stated, crossing his arms over his chest. "Use your head with this thing. She's young. She's got a long career ahead of her, and I'd like it to be here rather than not. And God knows you're not getting hired anywhere else if you leave."

"You mean my recommendation won't be glowing?"

The older man snorted. "There might be some asterisks."


	4. IV

**Title/Author:** "Between the Bars: McCoy" by n.s.

 **Rating** : T (minor language, some suggestive scenes)

 **Summary** : A not-canon-but-not- _not-_ canon take on Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid's relationship through seasons 5-6; in the same universe as "Between the Bars: Logan," so implied Mike Logan/Claire also.

 **Disclaimer** :I don't own any of these characters. This story is brought to you by 20-year-old repeats of Law & Order that happen to coincide with my daughter's nap time.

XXXXXXX

She opened the door halfway, and stood between it and the frame. Her hair was mussed, and her cheeks were flushed pink with fresh sleep and a fresh scrub.

"I thought you weren't very good company tonight," she said quietly, looking up at him from under her eyelashes.

"Still not," Jack assured her, resting his hand on the outside frame of the doorway. "But I'm in need of some."

She chewed on the inside of her mouth for a moment before stepping back and opening the door.

"I think I have some scotch."

"Poison of choice by the Bar Association," Jack said a moment later, when she shut the door behind him, "and the Police Union."

She frowned slightly at him, but ignored the remark.

As she poured the drinks in the kitchen, he remained standing, drinking in the new smells of her apartment. It was tidy and warm, uncluttered. He smelled her perfume, which he was already well familiarized with, but also her soap, from the heat of a recent shower that was still receding into the open bathroom.

She handed him the drink, and didn't take her hand away even after his wrapped below it on the glass.

"I'm sorry. It's a shit situation," she said simply, sliding her hand away slowly so her fingers brushed his. He felt the contact jolt all the way to the pit of his stomach.

"It's…life." He offered, as he lowered himself onto the couch.

She sat across from him, curling her legs under her comfortably, as if it wasn't the first time her boss was here, in her apartment, drinking scotch just shy of midnight.

Her toes poked out, a shimmery red color he never imagined would be hiding under her sensible heels.

"I'll drink to that," she said, taking a shallow sip before saying, "but you're not drinking."

"Sorry. Wasn't paying attention."

"Distracted?" She asked, twirling a damp wavy lock just below her chin.

 _Damn it._

"Completely," he admitted, his hand reaching out as if on its own to touch the same lock of hair. "You're wearing it wavy, more."

"I just thought…to hell with that professor."

"That, I'll drink to."

Instead of sipping his scotch, he kissed her mouth.


	5. III

**Title/Author:** "Between the Bars: McCoy" by n.s.

 **Rating** : T (minor language, some suggestive scenes)

 **Summary** : A not-canon-but-not- _not-_ canon take on Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid's relationship through seasons 5-6; in the same universe as "Between the Bars: Logan," so implied Mike Logan/Claire also.

 **Disclaimer** :I don't own any of these characters. This story is brought to you by 20-year-old repeats of Law & Order that happen to coincide with my daughter's nap time.

XXXXXXX

"So how long?" Sally Bell asked, smacking her lips demonstratively as the scotch burned its way to her navel. All those years and she never acquired the taste.

"How long what?" Jack asked, brown eyes twinkling over the rim of his glass as he took a second sip.

"Since you've been sharing your briefs with Miss Kincaid," she said with an eyebrow wriggle, mostly a friendly joke with just a tiny twinge of appropriate, ex-jealousy.

"Interesting visual," Jack said with a shake of his head and a wolfish smile. "But you're dead wrong."

"Oh, wow," Sally's mouth fell open.

Jack grinned again, raising his glass.

"What can I say, I'm a changed man." _And she prefers her Micks with a badge._

"I highly doubt that," Sally said after a moment, her smile less friendly now and more knowing. "You're in trouble, Jack."

"Care to elaborate, or do I not want to know?"

"Well, I was sleeping with you for at least six months before I looked at you the way she does," she told him, and watched as he reacted to that before adding, "And it took you _another_ six to look at me that way."

After the briefest beat, he regained his composure.

"Objection. Argumentative."

Sally laughed a quick, sincere belly laugh.

"Overruled. I'm an expert in the field."


	6. II

**Title/Author:** "Between the Bars: McCoy" by n.s.

 **Rating** : T (minor language, some suggestive scenes)

 **Summary** : A not-canon-but-not- _not-_ canon take on Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid's relationship through seasons 5-6; in the same universe as "Between the Bars: Logan," so implied Mike Logan/Claire also.

 **Disclaimer** :I don't own any of these characters. This story is brought to you by 20-year-old repeats of Law & Order that happen to coincide with my daughter's nap time.

XXXXXXX

"I've been there," she said quietly as her car slowed to a stop at a red light.

He'd brought the bike to work, and it had rained, and she told him, _You'll pay out of your nose for a cab at this time of night,_ and he had a strange desire to get into her car and be in a foreign, intimate place with her, so here he was. The smell of her perfume and the Tic Tacs she was always chewing enveloped them, and his hands were tingling from desire to just touch her hand as it rested on the gear shift.

After she spoke, he simply studied her profile in the darkness, not saying a word as the car turned into a mobile confessional.

"After things with Joel ended, and he was…unhappy," she continued a moment later, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel. "Part of me thought, _If I just give in_ …I can understand what she was thinking when she did what she did."

He shook his head dismissively and looked back out the windshield as she shifted into drive and continued on Broadway.

"He's a son of a bitch."

She nodded. "Well, thanks to Sarah Maslin, he'll get to be one in prison."

He turned to face her again. "I didn't mean Talbot."

She flicked her glance to him quickly, then back to the road, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"I wasn't a victim. It wasn't rape, or even a shade of it."

"No. But you were a kid."

"I was 25."

"25 or not," he shook his head again. "You were green. That, coupled with everything _else_ about you, probably turned him on even _mor_ —,"

"—speaking from personal experience?"

"Ouch."

"I didn't mean—I'm sorry," she backpedaled, her voice serious. "That was a bad joke. You could _not_ be more different."

"Why Miss Kincaid, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Don't get used to it." She said with a smirk, giving him a quick side glance. "Even if we _do_ sleep together."


	7. I

**Title/Author:** "Between the Bars: McCoy" by n.s.

 **Rating** : T (minor language, some suggestive scenes)

 **Summary** : A not-canon-but-not- _not-_ canon take on Jack McCoy and Claire Kincaid's relationship through seasons 5-6; in the same universe as "Between the Bars: Logan," so implied Mike Logan/Claire also.

 **Disclaimer** :I don't own any of these characters. This story is brought to you by 20-year-old repeats of Law & Order that happen to coincide with my daughter's nap time.

XXXXXXX

"He's stupid."

She looked up, her hand still on the phone as it sat in its cradle.

"Excuse me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He nodded at the phone as crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall of her cubicle.

"Whoever you've been calling for the past week, and hasn't been answering."

Her face turned unmistakably flush, for a flicker of a moment, before rapidly fading back.

"I think that is slightly outside of your jurisdiction," she informed him curtly, turning to face her desk. "I finished Susan Forrest's brief."

"Great." He tossed his head toward the elevator. "How about dinner?"

"Not hungry," she said without looking up from the memo pad she busied herself writing on.

"Then keep me company and have a glass of wine. My treat, your favorite, Szechuan Dragon." She slowed her writing, a chink in the armor, so he continued, "c'mon, the brief is done. Anything else at this time of night will be busy work."

"The life of an assistant DA," she said, more heavily than he imagined she meant to, putting her pen down.

"Not tonight."

Dinner conversation was light, and the faraway look in her eyes and hesitancy of her smile evaporated after appetizers and a glass and a half of plum wine.

"Why don't you wear it wavy?" he asked suddenly, as she fiddled with her hair, which at the late hour in the humid weather had fought successfully against the blow out she gave it that morning. She touched an end self-consciously, and tucked it behind her ear.

"I had a professor in law school who told me curly-haired women were seen as loose, and if I wanted to be taken seriously by a jury _or_ other attorneys, I should wear it straight or pulled back," she explained with a shrug and a self-deprecating smile. "I guess it stuck with me."

He wanted to reach across the tiny table and pull that strand back out so it would curl around her jaw line. Instead, he just held her gaze and said, "Well, I like it."

Her lip curled in a sarcastic half-smile.

"Thank you, prosecutor McCoy, for strengthening the case _against_ it."


End file.
